Out of the Woodwork

College Right-to-Life Movement Visible on Campuses Everywhere

By Holly Miller
NRLC Field Coordinator

St. Louis - - At the recent National Right to Life Convention held here, dozens of college students and chapter leaders from across the country nestled in for a workshop entitled "Campus Connections." The intent was to drive home the point that a chapter ought to include the local campus in its coverage area and its students in the lifesaving work of the chapter.

Sally Winn and I recommended conventional and unconventional ways a local chapter could make an impact on the college campus in its community. But we stressed that most of the work has to come from within. No outside organization will ever be as effective on a campus as one affiliated with the university can be.

The number of campus right-to-life group leaders present at the workshop (and the emphasis given to them by the convention) showcased how college students have accepted the challenge to actively promote a life-affirming message on their campuses - - and in an organized way. Just as the number of young people declaring themselves to be pro-life has risen each year, the number of students who start or revive pro-life groups on their campuses has also steadily increased.

In the last several years, long-standing and vibrant campus groups, like those at Harvard University, University of Notre Dame, and Princeton Theological Seminary, have been joined in the campus right-to-life movement by students at the University of California-Berkeley, John Carroll University, and the University of Virginia, to name just a few.

To be sure, college campuses are still centers of some of the greatest hostility to the unborn in our culture, but determined young people are making inroads. The best advice for chapters and college students alike is simply, "Be yourselves."

We have credibility as members of our community simply by being a part of the community. Students out to demonstrate this and to be the face of the pro-life movement have hosted information tables on their campuses. Passers by recognize their friends and classmates as the students behind the tables and tend to ask more questions in a less hostile way.

Interestingly, it is sometimes the groups at private, Christian, and Catholic colleges who have the greatest difficulty receiving official recognition. One convention attendee, an incoming sophomore at Berry College in Georgia, related how a new group was unable to maintain its club status because the issue was considered "too political" and therefore inappropriate for campus life. Hopefully, student support for the club and its right to exist and the club's commitment to service will change the minds of administrators and the hearts of those with contempt for our message.

At other campuses, including Boston College, clubs in good standing have had difficulty printing ads in the school paper and other campus publicity avenues.

But even the difficulties pro-life clubs have faced should provide us with optimism. If young people have encountered resistance it means that there are students willing to stand up for the unborn and their mothers on those campuses. Frustrations and setbacks have provided pro-life students with additional opportunities to educate their peers on what they believe and why it is right to protect life. More students have been motivated to join pro-life clubs when they have been threatened with unfair treatment by the university.

As Morton Blackwell of the Leadership Institute teaches, "Moral outrage is the most powerful motivating force in politics." It has compelled all of us to actively involve ourselves in the cause to protect the unborn from legal killing, and moral outrage is also compelling pro-life college students, tired of having their values derided, to more active involvement in the pro-life movement.

The coordination between and new friendships forged by the college students at the National Right to Life Convention will be an encouragement as they return to their campuses and to another year of promoting the sanctity of life to their peers.